The camera can capture some fantastic moments IV

[Blib]

Fishtigua said:

< @uncontrolled airspace surrounding a knackered 911>

Anyone?

[ApOrbital]

Nope.

[Blib]

[Stickyfinger]

Blib said:

Died 5 mins after his lunch break started ....

[Rostfritt]

Blib said:

They have had to erect glass around Oscar Wilde's grave to stop this



Seems to have moved on from kissing to just vandalism.

[Blib]

[Stickyfinger]

SS officers grave.....some scum has even placed a Poppy on it !


or had their kid photographed next to it !

I do not know if "fantastic " is the correct word for this

[Hugo a Gogo]

Stickyfinger said:

SS officers grave.....some scum has even placed a Poppy on it !

I think scum is a bit harsh, could be a genuine remembrance thing

he was a tank commander, not a camp guard

[yellowjack]

Stickyfinger said:

SS officers grave.....some scum has even placed a Poppy on it !


or had their kid photographed next to it !

I do not know if "fantastic " is the correct word for this

I've got to say I disagree with you.

Especially the "some scum has even placed a Poppy on it !" comment.

Whilst the poppy is sold in UK to support a charity which suppoprts service veterans, the poppy is also a universal symbol of remembrance, and also of renewal, hope, a fresh start.

How can you know that the poppy wasn't placed there by an Allied forces veteran who faced Michael Wittmann in battle? Maybe it was placed there by the very man who brought about his death in the German efforts to defend against the Normandy invasion forces?

Despite the SS uniform, and the justly 'earned', in many cases, reputation for violence and murder, you can't know this man's politics, or even that he was a Nazi. The SS Panzer Divisions were an elite field fighting force, not the secret police. A fallen enemy, a professional soldier, who quite possibly fought with bravery, honour, and distinction, is as worthy of remembrance by those descendants he left behind as any allied soldier lost in action is by their descendants.

Hell's teeth, man! You'd have had forty fits over the memorials erected at the hardened aircraft shelters on Shaibah Logistics Base (formerly the Iraqi Air Force's Basrah Air Base). Large crosses were put up to mark the sites of mass graves of enemy combatants who were killed during allied forces air strikes after taking shelter in what they mistakenly believed were concrete structures capable of defeating allied bombs. They weren't, and many died. Their lives were given in the service of their country, and their passing deserved to be marked, regardless of the cause they were fighting for.

Every Remembrance Day, and most days I draw breath, to be fair, I think about those members of my unit (33/101 Engr Regt EOD) who didn't return form tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the last few years of my service, I even lived in an accommodation block named after a man I served with, Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth, and next door was a block named for Sapper Luke Allsopp. Most recently, a 'flat mate' was killed after volunteering to serve on a tour when it wasn't 'his turn' to go. RIP K-P. But I am unable to 'sterilize' those memories, to limit them to my own colleagues, nor even just British/allied dead. It's impossible to erase the images of the (largely nameless) enemy combatants whose remains also needed to be recovered, and given some dignity in their treatment, even where their identities could not be confirmed. Even as I stood, stock-still, with my weapon held in the 'Reverse Arms' position as I ceremonially 'guarded' the Ripon war memorial at a remembrance parade some years back, my personal Act of Remembrance was for ALL those killed in conflicts, both recent, and long past. On most drumhead services, and remembrance parades, the Padre will ask those present to remember the victims of war, both military and civilian, on both sides.

So please. Have some respect for the family of this man, and don't refer to people who commit to remembering him as 'Scum'. Some of them may be right wing extremists, neo-Nazis, whatever you choose to call them, but there are pretty robust laws already to deal with these people if and when they transgress.

Know also this. Respect for one's enemy on the battlefield is often a two-way thing. Sgt Thomas Frank Durrant VC was a Royal Engineer. He won his Victoria Cross on the St Nazaire raid on 28 March 1942. The award of the VC was made partly on the recommendation of Kapitänleutnant F. K. Paul, the German naval officer commanding the destroyer Jaguar which eventually neutralised the fire from Durrant's gun. Durrant was taken to a German military hospital, but died of his wounds that same night.

[JustinP1]

yellowjack said:

Stickyfinger said:

SS officers grave.....some scum has even placed a Poppy on it !


or had their kid photographed next to it !

I do not know if "fantastic " is the correct word for this

I've got to say I disagree with you.

Especially the "some scum has even placed a Poppy on it !" comment.

Whilst the poppy is sold in UK to support a charity which suppoprts service veterans, the poppy is also a universal symbol of remembrance, and also of renewal, hope, a fresh start.

How can you know that the poppy wasn't placed there by an Allied forces veteran who faced Michael Wittmann in battle? Maybe it was placed there by the very man who brought about his death in the German efforts to defend against the Normandy invasion forces?

Despite the SS uniform, and the justly 'earned', in many cases, reputation for violence and murder, you can't know this man's politics, or even that he was a Nazi. The SS Panzer Divisions were an elite field fighting force, not the secret police. A fallen enemy, a professional soldier, who quite possibly fought with bravery, honour, and distinction, is as worthy of remembrance by those descendants he left behind as any allied soldier lost in action is by their descendants.

Hell's teeth, man! You'd have had forty fits over the memorials erected at the hardened aircraft shelters on Shaibah Logistics Base (formerly the Iraqi Air Force's Basrah Air Base). Large crosses were put up to mark the sites of mass graves of enemy combatants who were killed during allied forces air strikes after taking shelter in what they mistakenly believed were concrete structures capable of defeating allied bombs. They weren't, and many died. Their lives were given in the service of their country, and their passing deserved to be marked, regardless of the cause they were fighting for.

Every Remembrance Day, and most days I draw breath, to be fair, I think about those members of my unit (33/101 Engr Regt EOD) who didn't return form tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the last few years of my service, I even lived in an accommodation block named after a man I served with, Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth, and next door was a block named for Sapper Luke Allsopp. Most recently, a 'flat mate' was killed after volunteering to serve on a tour when it wasn't 'his turn' to go. RIP K-P. But I am unable to 'sterilize' those memories, to limit them to my own colleagues, nor even just British/allied dead. It's impossible to erase the images of the (largely nameless) enemy combatants whose remains also needed to be recovered, and given some dignity in their treatment, even where their identities could not be confirmed. Even as I stood, stock-still, with my weapon held in the 'Reverse Arms' position as I ceremonially 'guarded' the Ripon war memorial at a remembrance parade some years back, my personal Act of Remembrance was for ALL those killed in conflicts, both recent, and long past. On most drumhead services, and remembrance parades, the Padre will ask those present to remember the victims of war, both military and civilian, on both sides.

So please. Have some respect for the family of this man, and don't refer to people who commit to remembering him as 'Scum'. Some of them may be right wing extremists, neo-Nazis, whatever you choose to call them, but there are pretty robust laws already to deal with these people if and when they transgress.

Know also this. Respect for one's enemy on the battlefield is often a two-way thing. Sgt Thomas Frank Durrant VC was a Royal Engineer. He won his Victoria Cross on the St Nazaire raid on 28 March 1942. The award of the VC was made partly on the recommendation of Kapitänleutnant F. K. Paul, the German naval officer commanding the destroyer Jaguar which eventually neutralised the fire from Durrant's gun. Durrant was taken to a German military hospital, but died of his wounds that same night.

Great post.

As well as a tank driver, that man is someone's father, and a grandad and great grandad to children he never got to meet through war.

[Stickyfinger]

SS Officer..., he and his clique deserves no memory other that what he and his clique did to the world.
SS Divisions in the East.....
SS Divisions in Italy......
SS Divisions in France.....would you like a long list of what "the divisions" did in those countries ?

You did not get to his level without being a committed Nazi party member...so to publicly remember him like that is not good, hero worship (as he is) is twisted and revisionist. Those are not family tributes btw, they are from fans.

I have zero problem remembering the fallen from whatever side, but not the culpable. Fan worship of them is distasteful in the extreme.

Edited by Stickyfinger on Tuesday 8th September 12:48

[Blib]

[mickk]

Nice crack!

[JustinP1]

Stickyfinger said:

SS Officer..., he and his clique deserves no memory other that what he and his clique did to the world.
SS Divisions in the East.....
SS Divisions in Italy......
SS Divisions in France.....would you like a long list of what "the divisions" did in those countries ?

You did not get to his level without being a committed Nazi party member...so to publicly remember him like that is not good, hero worship (as he is) is twisted and revisionist. Those are not family tributes btw, they are from fans.

I have zero problem remembering the fallen from whatever side, but not the culpable. Fan worship of them is distasteful in the extreme.

Edited by Stickyfinger on Tuesday 8th September 12:48

The pot of flowers with a wooden cross with a poppy on it.

To me, that's not a symbol of fervent Neo-Nazi hero worship. It's a mark of remembrance.

I would understand the remarkable nature of the photo if the kid was in Hitler Youth regalia holding a swastika wreath but that's not that photo, nor is there the suggestion that that goes on there.

Edited by JustinP1 on Tuesday 8th September 13:44

[havoc]

Think you're in the minority here SF.

I've not got the first-hand experience of the poster above, but I studied Weimar / Nazi Germany at A-Level (years ago now...), and a LOT of members of the Nazi party joined not because they were anti-semitic, or violent, or even nationalist, but because that was "what you did" in society at that time, or because they were compelled to do so because of their profession (i.e. join or lose your job).

Also note that the true colours of the Nazi party were slow to come to the fore, by which point it was effectively too late for anyone moderate in Germany to do anything to protest except get themselves arrested...the few that successfully tried were massively outnumbered by those that ended up in unpleasant conversations with Gestapo / Gefepo / etc.

Finally, the Waffen SS (military arm) were as mentioned an elite fighting force, albeit one originally set-up from the extremists. Mid-war, the Waffen-SS expanded to include foreign nationals (typically allied or occupied nations) and then conscripted soldiers the same way as the regular army. So the Waffen SS would have had a large minority of extremists, but equally would have had a lot of 'ordinary' soldiers. The mix between them varied between Divisions, and the leadership was usually die-hards, but that doesn't mean an ordinary Waffen-SS soldier was a war-criminal.

...and note please they were living under a police state in time of war. Anyone who protested an order would have been summarily court-martialled and shot / hung (yes, genuinely).

[Hugo a Gogo]

Stickyfinger said:

SS Officer..., he and his clique deserves no memory other that what he and his clique did to the world.
SS Divisions in the East.....
SS Divisions in Italy......
SS Divisions in France.....would you like a long list of what "the divisions" did in those countries ?

You did not get to his level without being a committed Nazi party member...so to publicly remember him like that is not good, hero worship (as he is) is twisted and revisionist. Those are not family tributes btw, they are from fans.

I have zero problem remembering the fallen from whatever side, but not the culpable. Fan worship of them is distasteful in the extreme.

Edited by Stickyfinger on Tuesday 8th September 12:48

I read that Michael Wittmann was never in the NSDAP at all, never mind being 'committed'

[Stickyfinger]

JustinP1 said:

The pot of flowers with a wooden cross with a poppy on it.

To me, that's not a symbol of fervent Neo-Nazi hero worship. It's a mark of remembrance.

So...why not on the other graves ?, I tell you why because it is hero worship and a bit sick to knowingly shove your kid next to that particular grave. Would you do that given the 100'000 of graves in Normandy ?

havoc said:

Think you're in the minority here SF.
.

I maybe but...

He was in an SS unit from early on, Wittmann joined the Allgemeine-SS in 1936, it was a volunteer unit which at the time was highly political formation. Later (a year or so) the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler and again I am sure you can guess the internal opinions of that one.

He had lots of choice, he made his choice.

Hugo a Gogo said:

I read that Michael Wittmann was never in the NSDAP at all, never mind being 'committed'

See above, that is both revisionist and excusing of his choices.
Follow the deployment history of those units and see what was left in the wake of them on the Eastern front

Said my piece.....I think my position is known on those.

[Stickyfinger]

[Hugo a Gogo]

Stickyfinger said:

Hugo a Gogo said:

I read that Michael Wittmann was never in the NSDAP at all, never mind being 'committed'

See above, that is both revisionist and excusing of his choices.

no, it's neither

[LordGrover]

This is all off topic - feel free to debate in another thread on a more appropriate forum.

Let's have some fantastic photos please.